A Final Look At The Election On The Shore

In my last post I took a look at the election results on the Eastern Shore where the Democrat Frank Kratovil ended eighteen years of Republican success in the First Congressional District by narrowly beating Republican Andy Harris.  I also pointed out that, despite Kratovil's win, the Shore still looked pretty Republican as Democrat Barack Obama got pasted by Republican John McCain in every county on the Shore.

Let's take a look at those numbers again.

Eastern Shore Results for President - 2008

County	Obama	McCain	Others	% Obama	% McCain
Caroline	4971	8015	192	37.72%	60.82%
Cecil	17665	23855	849	41.69%	56.30%
Dorchester	6912	8168	163	45.35%	53.59%
Kent	4953	4905	143	49.53%	49.05%
Queen Anne's	8575	15087	303	35.78%	62.95%
Somerset	4779	5037	98	48.20%	50.81%
Talbot	9035	10995	252	44.55%	54.21%
Wicomico	19436	21849	471	46.55%	52.33%
Worcester	11374	15607	316	41.67%	57.17%

Those are some pretty convincing numbers.  Except for Somerset and Kent counties - the two smallest - McCain dominated everywhere. 

But, if we look back at the 2004 Presidential contest, we see an interesting phenomenon.

Presidential Results - 2004

County	Kerry	Bush	Other	Kerry %	Bush %
Caroline	3810	7396	142	33.57	65.17
Cecil	14680	22556	419	38.99	59.90
Dorchester	5411	7801	119	40.59	58.52
Kent	4278	4900	97	46.12	52.83
Queen Anne's	7070	14489	222	32.46	66.52
Somerset	4034	4884	73	44.87	54.32
Talbot	7367	11288	197	39.08	59.88
Wicomico	15137	21998	328	40.41	58.72
Worcester	9648	15349	218	38.26	60.87

As we can see, the Democratic ticket improved their showing in 2008 in every county on the Shore.  In most counties the improvement was in the 3 - 4 % range, but in Wicomico there was a big 6% jump and in Talbot the increase was 5%.  These numbers not only offer hope to Democrats that they will do even better in the next Presidential election, but also point to possible gains in the state and local elections in 2010. 

So keep your eyes on the Shore in 2010, we may have some surprises here.